(Jamaica Gleaner) A man who stabbed his 21-year-old girlfriend at least 20 times seven years ago has lost his bid to get his murder conviction and life sentence overturned in the Court of Appeal.
President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Patrick Brooks, yesterday gave the oral judgment on Norman Thomas’ application for permission to appeal.
Thomas, a taxi operator, pleaded guilty in January 2020 to the murder of Kyria Nelson and a month later was ordered to serve 15 years in prison before being eligible for parole.
He was 57-year-old when he visited, attacked and killed the woman at her workplace in Ocho Rios, St Ann, on January 29, 2016.
He admitted in a police caution statement that the two got into a fight after “she rebuffed his attempts to touch her”.
“He persisted. She resisted,” the statement said.
He surrendered to the police.
Thomas argued that the sentence was “manifestly excessive”. His complaint that his lawyer in the case “badly advised” him was treated as an appeal against conviction.
That attorney has since died.
Thomas alleged that he was “forced to plead guilty by his attorney for something that he did not do” and that the lawyer told him it was best for him to admit to the crime.
He also claimed that the lawyer did not tell him he could plead not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter and benefit from a lower sentence.
Brooks said there is no evidence to rebut Thomas’ assertions given the death of the lawyer. But he pointed to evidence from a prosecutor about what transpired with the plea deal.
The prosecutor said the Crown rejected the lawyer’s proposal for Thomas to plead guilty to manslaughter.
Thomas’ lawyer in the appeal, Jacqueline Cummings, accepted that based on the prosecutor’s evidence, it could not be properly argued that the defence lawyer failed to consider manslaughter.
Instead, Cummings argued that the trial judge erred in imposing the maximum sentence of life imprisonment rather than ordering a term of imprisonment that was less than the 15 years Thomas was to serve before he could be considered for parole. She said her suggestion was justified because Thomas had no previous convictions and had a good community report.
Brooks said Cummings was “quite correct” in her position on her client’s assertions implicating the deceased lawyer.
But that was the only point on which there was agreement as the Court of Appeal dismissed all the arguments for the sentence to be revisited.
Thomas’ murder confession was “unhesitating and unequivocal” and his allegation that he was forced to plead guilty “cannot be accepted”, Brooks said, adding that manslaughter would not have been available to Thomas, because based on Thomas’ own assertions, he was the aggressor.
“He was a man on mission that day. He felt disrespected and used by this young lady and went armed with his knife to confront her. He accosted her and continued to impose himself on her physically. Even if, as he says, she rushed to her bag in which he thought she had acid, that would have been an attempt at self-defence,” the judge read.
Brooks said Thomas “cannot then say he was provoked or thought that it was necessary to defend himself when he inflicted those 20 wounds on her. His present attempt to accuse defence counsel of being wanting in the circumstances is futile”.
Brooks also indicated that Cummings was “not on good grounds” regarding the sentencing.
“The manner of the commission of this murder, especially the number of wounds that Thomas inflicted on this young lady was such that he (the judge) made no error in principle,” he said, adding that the judge was entitled to consider reports at the time that the woman’s family was still grieving over the “horrific act”.
Brooks said: “Thomas’ complaints are without merit. The transcript of the proceedings show that he entered his plea voluntarily and therefore his attempt to retract it at this stage cannot be accepted. His complaint about the sentence is similarly misplaced.”
After the decision was read out, Thomas, who appeared in court from the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, asked whether there was any physical evidence “to prove all these allegations that Nelson was 21 years old. I was denying that…”.
Brooks responded that the evidence was put before the trial judge which he said was based on a doctor’s findings.
